Cyme (Aeolis)
Cyme Κύμη | |||||||||
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8th century – 241 BC | |||||||||
Silver tetradrachm of Cyme, 165–140 BC
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Attalid dynasty | 241–133 BC | ||||||||
133 BC | |||||||||
• Disestablished | 241 BC | ||||||||
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Cyme (
The Aeolians regarded Cyme as the largest and most important of their twelve cities, which were located on the coastline of Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey).[citation needed] As a result of their direct access to the sea, unlike most non-landlocked settlements of the ancient world, trade is believed to have prospered.
Location
Both the author of the Life of Homer and Strabo the ancient geographer, locate Cyme north of the Hermus river on the Asia Minor coastline:
After crossing the Hyllus, the distance from Larissa to Cyme was 70 stadia, and from Cyme to Myrina was 40 stadia. (Strabo: 622)
Archaeological finds such as coins give reference also to a river, believed to be that of the Hyllus.[2]
History
Early history
Little is known about the foundation of the city to supplement the traditional founding legend. Kyme was the largest of the Aiolian cities. According to legend, it was founded by the Amazon Kyme. The Amazons were a mythical tribe of warlike women from Pontos (or variously from Kolchis, Thrace or Scythia), who fought against Greek heroes. Ancient coins from Cyme often depict the head of Kyme wearing a taenia with the reverse featuring a horse prancing - probably in allusion to the prosperous equine industry of the region.[3]
Alternatively, settlers from mainland Greece (most likely
The city was founded after the Trojan War by Greeks from Locris, central Greece, after they have first captured the Pelasgian citadel of Larisa near the river Hermus.[5][6]
Cyme prospered and developed into a regional metropolis and founded about thirty towns and settlements in Aeolis. The Cymeans were later ridiculed as a people who had for three hundred years lived on the coast and not once exacted harbor taxes on ships making port.
Tradition recounts that a
daughter of a certain Agamemnon, king of Aeolian Cyme, married a Phrygian king called Midas. This link may have facilitated the Greeks "borrowing" their alphabet from the Phrygians because the Phrygian letter shapes are closest to the inscriptions from Aeolis.[4]
A passage in Pollux speaks about those who invented the process of coining money mentioning Pheidon and
Politically, Cyme is assumed[who?] to have started as a settler democracy following in the tradition of other established colonies in the region although Aristotle concluded that by the 7th and 6th centuries BCE the once great democracies in the Greek world (including Cyme) evolved not from democracies to oligarchies as was the natural custom but from democracies to tyrannies.[11]
5th century BC
By the 5th century BC, Cyme was one of the 12 established Ionian colonies in Aeolis.
When Pactyes, the Lydian general, sought refuge in Cyme from the
Pactyes, when he learnt that an army was already on his tracks and near, took fright and fled to Cyme, and
Branchidaeas to whether they should obey ... The messengers returned home to report, and the citizens of Cyme were prepared in consequence to give up the wanted man.
After the Persian naval defeat at
Once
Roman and Byzantine era
Polybius records that Cyme obtained freedom from taxation following the defeat of Antiochus III, later being incorporated into Roman Asia province.[18] During the reign of Tiberius, the city suffered from a great earthquake, common in the Aegean.[19] Other Roman sources such as Pliny the Elder mention Cyme as one of the cities of Aeolia[20] which supports Herodotus' similar claim:[21]
The above-mentioned, then, are the twelve towns of the Ionians. The Aeolic cities are the following: Cyme, called also Phriconis,
, but the climate is less agreeable.
It was assigned to the
Ecclesiastical history
During the
Titular see
The diocese was nominally restored in 1894 as a Latin titular see.
It is vacant, having had the following (non-consecutive) incumbents, all of the lowest (episcopa) rank:
- Carlo Quaroni (1894.10.08 – 1896.01.20)
- Orazio Mazzella (1896.02.11 – 1898.03.24) (later Archbishop)
- Jeno Kránitz (1907.04.15 – 1935.07.12)
- Peter Leo Ireton (1935.08.03 – 1945.04.14)
- James Donald Scanlan (1946.04.27 – 1949.05.31) (later Archbishop)
- Urbain-Marie Person, Capuchin Friars(O.F.M. Cap.) (1955.07.03 – 1994.02.09)
Archaeology
Archaeologists first started taking an interest in the site in the middle of the 19th century as the wealthy landowner D. Baltazzi and later S. Reinach began excavation on the southern necropolis. In 1925, A. Salaç, working out of the Bohemian Mission, uncovered many interesting finds, including a small temple to Isis, a Roman porticus and what is believed to be a 'potter's house'. Encouraged by their successes, Turkish archaeologist E. Akurgal[22] began his own project in 1955 which uncovered an Orientalising ceramic on the southern hill. Between 1979 and 1984, the Izmir Museum carried out similar excavations at various locations around the site, uncovering further inscriptions and structures on the southern hill.
Geophysical studies at Cyme in more recent years, have given archaeologists a much greater knowledge of the site without being as intrusive. Geomagnetic surveys of the terrain reveal additional structures beneath the soil, as yet untouched by excavations.
The northwest side of the southern hill was utilized as a residential neighborhood during the entire existence of the city. Only a limited area of the hill has been investigated. It has been verified that there were at least five successive phases of building.
1. A long and straight wall going from north to southeast represented the most ancient building phase. In the wall there are visible traces of a threshold linking two rooms. There is uncertainty as to the chronology of the wall, but what is sure is that it was built before the end of the 5th century BC.
2. Two rooms (A and B), that were part of a building dating back to the end of the 5th century BC, belong to the second phase. The building appears to be complete on the northern side, but could have also had other rooms on the southern side, where the entrance to room A opened up. The western wall of room A, was constructed with squared limestone blocks, and also acted as a terracing wall connecting the strong natural difference on the side of the hill. At the foot of this wall there was a cistern excavated in the rock that gathered water coming from the roof of the house. The cistern was filled with debris and great amounts of black and plain pottery dating back to the late Hellenistic Age.
3. Some walls that belonged to the Imperial Roman Period were constructed by means of white mortar and bricks. During this phase a service room east of room A, with a floor that was made of leveled rock, was built. In the area of the cistern, by now filled, a new room decorated by wall paintings was also built.
4. A large house occupied the area during the Late Roman Period. The rooms were constructed using reused materials, but without the use of mortar, and often enriched by polychrome mosaics. Access was gained by a ramp placed at the edge of the southwestern part of the excavation. Still, what needs to be clarified is the extent of the building, whose destruction is placed between the end of the 6th century to the beginning of the 7th century AD.
5. The final phase is represented by some superficial structures found at the northern part of the excavation. There is a long wall going from the northwest to the southeast and a ramp built with reused blocks, with the same orientation as the wall. The wall and the ramp could be proof that this area was utilized during the Byzantine Age.[22]
Numismatics
Although historians have dated the Trojan war to 1178 BC by calculating Homer's solar eclipse,[23] it was not immortalised in the Iliad until about 750 BC.[24] Around the same period, the Mykonos pithamphora - which shows the wooden horse the Greeks used to infiltrate Troy - was manufactured on the island of Tinos.[25] Referenced in both literature and art, that cunning end to the war - the Trojan Horse - had become synonymous with the name of Agamemnon. The house of Agamemnon claimed continuity at Cyme in Aeolia, associating themselves with the legends of the exploits of the Pelopids and "particularly the taking of Troy."[26] and the symbolism of the horse was stamped in the coins from this area, presumably in reference to the power of the Agamemnon lineage. Indeed, the daughter of Agamemnon of Cyme, Damodice, is credited with inventing coined money by Julius Pollux after she married King Midas - famed for turning everything he touched into gold.[27]
The most rational explanation of this fable seems to be, that he encouraged his subjects to convert the produce of their agriculture, and other branches of industry, into money, by commerce, whence considerable wealth flowed into his own treasury... though it is more likely, that what the Greeks called invention, was rather the introduction of the knowledge of them [coins] from countries more advanced in civilization.[28]
It is possible that the mythical figure of Midas was based on a real king of Phrygia in the 8th century BC known as Mita.
Damodice may still have been instrumental in striking the coinage of Cyme as both Aristotle and Pollux attribute this to her but may have been confused with whether she married a later 7th or even 6th century Midas.[33]
The river god Hermos, horse with their forefoot raised and victorious athletes are typical symbols commonly found on period coinage minted at Cyme.[34] Ancient coins from Cyme often depict the head of the Amazon Kyme wearing a taenia with the reverse featuring a horse prancing - probably in allusion to the prosperous equine industry of the region.[35]
Notable people
- Hermodike I attributed with transferring the Persian written script into Greece.
- Agamemnon of Cyme, associated himself with "the taking of Troy."[26]
- Hermodike II attributed with inventing coinage for common use and transferring this throughout Greece.
- Ephorus (c. 400 – 330 BC), ancient Greek historian.
- Hesiod's father, according to the poet (Op. et D. 636), sailed from Cyme to settle at Ascra in Boeotia; which does not prove, as such compilers as Stephanus and Suidas suppose, that Hesiod was a native of Cyme.
- Antigonus of Cyme, ancient Greek prose writer.[36]
- Teuthras of Cyme, ancient Greek musician.[37]
- Heracleides of Cyme, ancient Greek historian.
- stadion race in the 213th Ancient Olympic Games, 73 AD.[38]
- Gnostor of Cyme, Suda writes that Homer married Aresiphone who was the daughter of Gnostor of Cyme.[39]
See also
References
- ^ Herodotus, The Histories
- ^ "Aeolis Coins". Forumacientcoins.com. Retrieved 26 June 2022.
- ^ Ancient Coin Collecting II: Numismatic Art of the Greek World, Wayne Sayles, 2007, p. 88
- ^ a b Panhellenes at Methone: Graphê in Late Geometric and Protoarchaic Methone, edited by Jenny Strauss Clay, Irad Malkin, Yannis Z. Tzifopoulos, Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG, 2017, p. 154
- ^ a b P. Mack Crew, J.B. Bury, I.E.S Edwards, C.J. Gadd, John Boardman, N.G.L. Hammond. Cambridge Ancient History: c.1800-1380 B.C. Volume II, Part 2: c. 1380-1000 B.C. Cambridge University Press, 1975.
- ^ "Strabo, Geography, Book 13, chapter 3, section 3". Perseus.tufts.edu. Retrieved 26 June 2022.
- ^ The Book of Greek and Roman Folktales, Legends, and Myths, Princeton University Press, 2017, William Hansen, p. 400
- ^ Works and Days, 635ff.
- ^ A Treatise on my Country, on the history and antiquities of Cyme
- ^ Mycenaean Origin of Greek Mythology, Martin Nilsson, 1983 Univ of California Press, p. 48
- ^ Aristóteles (edited by Trevor J. Saunders). Politics. Oxford University Press, 1999.
- ^ Herodotus. Histories, 1.157.
- ^ Pierre Briant and Peter T. Daniels. From Cyrus to Alexander: A History of the Persian Empire. Eisenbrauns, 2006.
- ^ Herodotus. Histories, v. 38, 123.
- ^ Herodotus. Histories, vii. 194.
- ^ Herodotus. Histories, viii. 130.
- ^ Thucydides. History of the Peloponnesian War, iii. 31, viii. 31, 100.
- ^ Polybius, xxii. 27; Liv. xxxviii. 39.
- ^ Tacit. Ann. ii. 47.
- ^ Pliny the Elder, v. 30.
- ^ Herodotus. Histories, 1.149.
- ^ a b "Quartiere residenziale sulla collina sud" Archived 2007-04-15 at the Wayback Machine.
- ^ "Date Determined for Eclipse in Homer's Odyssey". Live Science. 23 June 2008.
- ^ "Trojan War". History.com. 31 May 2023.
- ^ "Trojan Horse". World History Encyclopedia. Retrieved 26 June 2022.
- ^ a b History of the Literature of Ancient Greece, Volume 1, By Karl Otfried Müller, Baldwin & Cradock, 1840, p. 44
- ^ The Mycenaean Origin of Greek Mythology, Martin Persson Nilsson, University of California Press, 1972, p. 48
- ^ Annals of Commerce, Manufactures, Fisheries, and Navigation, with Brief Notices of the Arts and Sciences Connected with Them. Containing the Commercial Transactions of the British Empire and Other Countries ... with a Large Appendix ... with a General Chronological Index ... 1805 ... by David Macpherson. In Four Volumes. Vol. 1.(-4.), Volume 1, p. 16
- ^ "Midas". World History Encyclopedia. Retrieved 26 June 2022.
- ^ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2020-11-08. Retrieved 2017-12-03.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) - ^ a b "Basic electrum types". Glebecoins.net. 5 July 2023.
- ^ M. Mitchiner, Ancient Trade and Early Coinage, Hawkins Publications, London, 2004, p. 214
- ^ Archaeology, Artifacts and Antiquities of the Ancient Near East: Sites, Cultures, and Proveniences, Oscar White Muscarella, BRILL, 2013, p. 705
- ^ "Catalogue of Greek Coinage (Wildwinds): Cyme Mint". Wildwinds.com. Retrieved 26 June 2022.[permanent dead link]
- ^ Wayne Sayles, 2007, ibid
- ^ "ToposText". Topostext.org. Retrieved 26 June 2022.
- ^ "ToposText". Topostext.org. Retrieved 26 June 2022.
- ^ "ToposText". Topostext.org. Retrieved 26 June 2022.
- ^ "SOL Search". Cs.uky.edu. Retrieved 26 June 2022.
Sources
- Herodotus, The Histories, trans. Aubrey de Selincourt, edit. John Marincola, ISBN 0-14-044908-6, Penguin Classics
- GigaCatholic with titular incumbent biography links
- Archeology
- Missioni Archeologiche Italiane in Turchia, Modern-day archaeological survey
- Archaeological Atlas of the Aegean Archived 2007-09-26 at the Wayback Machine, 163. Aliağa / Cyme (Kyme)
- Non-Destructive Geophysical surveys: Archaeological feedback paper, M. Ciminale and D. Gallo (Department of Geology and Geophysics, University of Bari)
- Current Archaeology in Turkey, Last updated: 2007-01-30
External links
- Overview of Herodotus, Book One
- Detailed article on Cyme, sourced from Mythography.com forums
- History of Greece, at the University of Lund, Sweden
- Catalogue of Greek Coinage (Wildwinds): Cyme Mint
- Forvm Ancient Coins, The Collaborative Numistimatics project: Aeolis Catalogue